Book Review: The Poison Apples Club

The Poison Apples Club
by  Lily Archer
Date Read:  8/22/15
Rating: ★ 

So, this book is called the Poison Apples and there is a blurb on the cover that says “Evil Stepmothers, BEWARE” and on the back of the book it says they make a cunning plan to exact their revenge.  So I was excited to read a fun semi-considered fairytale twist about these girls who have a grand plan for revenge against their evil stepmothers. I expected the plot to be about the revenge plan and then of course the girls realizing that revenge is not satisfying. 

BUT that is not what this story is about AT ALL.  I actually feel lied to.  Even the thought of revenge didn’t enter in to the book until 80% finished.  Then there is one chapter where they plan; and it’s not even a good plan. They didn’t even have specific details as to how to exact this revenge. How is that a “cunning plan”?  The each girl had ONE chapter, ONE, in which they were supposed to exact their revenge. And one wrap up chapter. That’s it.

The rest of the book was actually about the girls backstories, and then them meeting and hating each other and then finally becoming friends.  So this book is really just a story about girls dealing with life and making new friends. There was really no need for those last 5 chapters.  I think it was just the way that the author chose to semi-fix the characters family lives.

I didn’t feel that the characters sounded different enough. I couldn’t keep straight which back story applied to which girl. The only one I could sort of keep straight was Reena, since she was Indian and had Shanti Shruti for her step-mom.  And I generally didn’t know which girl was speaking.

I didn’t particularly care for certain aspects of the book either – such as smoking being cool, a girl complaining she was experienced enough in sex, hitting on a teacher, etc.

I realized about halfway through that I think I have a British version of the novel.  My first instinct was the fact that smoking was cool. But there were just several words or phrases here or there that were weird to me. I confirmed that it was printed in the UK.

I also didn’t believe the evilness of the stepmothers.  Most of what they did really wasn’t that bad. And honestly, what they should have been really upset about is the fact that their dad’s didn’t stand up for them.  They need to fix their relationship with their father rather than take everything out on the stepmother.

While this was a quick read, I still feel like I wasted a lot of time reading it, and I don’t like feeling like I was lied to.  There was absolutely no reason it should have been called the Poison Apples Club (it was only part of 15% of the entire story – how is that the title?!!!).

I wouldn’t waste my time on this.  There are many other good books that would be a better use of your time.